


Autumn Ghosts

by gloria_scott



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Ghosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 22:02:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5066053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloria_scott/pseuds/gloria_scott
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a mission, the Howling Commandos take refuge in a seemingly abandoned farmhouse - but they may not be alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Autumn Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spiderfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiderfire/gifts).



They had been on the march for almost three hours when they came upon the old farmhouse. Heavy clouds obscured a moon several days from the full. The darkness that had covered their precarious escape from the Hydra base outside of Nogent now hindered their progress through the unfamiliar French terrain, burdened as they were with an injured Dugan. 

Steve trudged along at the head of the line, playing and replaying the battle over in his mind. Everything seemed to go wrong with this mission, from faulty intel to garbled communications. He had been able to lead them to a hard-won victory in spite of everything, but the Howling Commandos had been cut off from the main battalion and forced to  retreat  west instead of making the rendezvous with  Manelli and the  others as planned. 

Then Dugan got hit, and damn it all to hell! 

The wind blew from the northeast, frigid and unrelenting. Steve shivered against the cold and knew that if even he was feeling it the others had to be worse off. None of them complained. Not even Dugan, wounded as he was, or Bucky and Monty who'd had to lug his heavy ass for the past ten miles. Steve stole a glance at Peggy walking a few paces to his right. Those usually fire-red lips were pale and almost blue. Her shoulders sagged and her eyes never left the ground in front of her. 

They needed to get under cover for the night and regroup. Steve scanned the horizon and could just make out the darker outline of a pitched roof against the night sky, maybe half a mile to the south.

“This way.”

He led them through fallow fields where no animals stirred, and quietly called a halt when they reached the stone wall marking the edge of the homestead. The cloud cover broke into ragged edges. Moonlight fitfully lit a small courtyard, rutted and stiff-mudded from recent rains. They left Dugan in the shadows of a dilapidated cow shed and made a sweep of the barns, stable, and root cellar – all empty – before moving on to the house.

The old stone house was dark and quiet. Steve led the way, making a quick search of the downstairs rooms – living room, kitchen, bedroom – then the two attic rooms upstairs. The air was chill and stale. No one had been there for some time. Whoever the former inhabitants were they hadn't left in a hurry. Most of the furniture was gone, and what was left was covered in ghostly sheets, made gray from a thick layer of dust. 

Steve gave the all clear and the Commandos congregated inside the living room, glad to finally drop their gear and bask in the relative comfort of the indoors. 

“Jones, what about that radio?”

“It's not working, Cap. I'll need to wait for more light to see if I can fix it.”

“Okay, get some shut eye. Morita, you take first watch.”

“No, I will,” Peggy's dark silhouette leaned wearily against the door frame leading to the bedroom where Dugan now lay. “I need to tend to Dugan's wounds, anyway. The rest of you can get some sleep.”

They split up to give each other some needed space.  Peggy stayed with Dugan.  Morita and  Jones sprawled out in the living room.  Monty and  Dernier  took one of the attic rooms, and Steve and Bucky took the other. 

Bucky dropped his kit on the floor and stretched out on the dusty, threadbare carpet. Within a few minutes he was out and snoring lightly. There was a knock on the half-open door and Peggy poked her head in, bearing gifts of blankets she'd found in a cedar chest downstairs. Steve threw one over Bucky's sleeping form, then sat down with his back to the stone wall. Even though they'd reached relative safety, something told him to remain on alert and so he settled in for the long night, listening. Peggy's footsteps retreated down the stairs. In the next room, Dernier and Monty whispered their concerns over Dugan's injuries and the broken radio until sleep finally overtook them, and the only company he had was the sound of the wind buffeting the old house and rattling the windows every so often.

He woke with a start on the other side of midnight. The air had grown colder; his breath was misty and the hackles on his neck were up. Every muscle tensed as if waiting for a blow to fall. The wind had died down and the house was quiet. No danger. He had just started to unwind again when he heard it – the noise that had dragged him from the sleep he'd never meant to take. It sounded like something hard tapping on glass. A tree branch, maybe?

Steve got up and examined each of the two small windows. There were no trees this close to the house. 

The tapping sounded again, louder this time. It seemed to be coming from the far side of the room. He stepped carefully over Bucky and approached a large covered bureau that was set against the wall separating this room from the other. 

_ taptaptap _

He reached for the sheet covering it and slowly pulled it off, revealing a plain but solidly constructed chest of drawers topped by a glass mirror. 

_ tap...tap...tap... _

With each 'tap' the mirror shuddered.  He peered closely at the glass, so engrossed in trying to discern the source of the noise that he only gradually became aware of what else was amiss. He took a step back, not believing what his eyes were clearly telling him. The dark room being reflected back at him was empty. He, himself, was nowhere to be seen.

_ taptaptap _

“Hey, Buck.” Steve kept his eyes fixed on the missing reflection. 

_ tap...tap...tap... _

“Bucky,” he tried again. Louder. 

_ taptaptap _

A growing sense of dread crept over his heart and chilled it. Time stretched out to infinity on all sides of him, and with each passing moment he felt less solid, less real, an incorporeal soul adrift in a frozen sea. Alone.

“Bucky!” Steve spun around, desperate to find his anchor again.

Bucky shot upright. “Okay, okay... I'm awake!”

In an instant he was at Steve's side, both of them now reflected in the mirror.

“What's going on?”

Steve gave a nod towards the bureau. “It sounded like someone was tapping.”

“What, you mean behind the wall? It's probably just Dernier fucking around.”

“No, from...” Steve knew it sounded crazy, but his compulsion to give an honest answer made him say it anyway. “It was coming from _inside_ the mirror.”

Bucky's reflection gave him a funny look.

“How long you been awake?”

Steve bristled at the implication. He was tired, sure, but not that far gone.

“I'm not hallucinating.”

“How long?” Bucky stared him down, too tired himself to take any of Steve's shit.

“Sixty-two hours, give or take.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes and Steve relented. He didn't have another fight left in him that night.

“Okay, okay. Point taken.”

Bucky said nothing more, just shook its head disapprovingly and withdrew. Steve turned and watched him flop down on his bedroll again.

Of course, the rational explanation was lack of sleep, over exertion, the stress of a mission gone sideways. He had only just dozed off. Maybe he'd dreamed about the tapping. Maybe he hadn't been quite awake when he'd first looked into the mirror.

Or maybe someone – or something – was trying to get his attention.

He hesitated, glancing back at the mirror again.

“Go to sleep!” Bucky snapped. “Cap'n,” he added, softening his tone with a smile.

Steve stretched out next to him and closed his eyes. It was probably for the best that he hadn't mentioned anything about the distorted reflection. Or that the tapping had sounded like an SOS. Sergeant Barnes already thought his commanding officer was losing his marbles. There was no point in providing more evidence to support that theory.

He listened long into the night, half hoping and half dreading that the tapping would return. All he heard was Bucky's quiet breathing, and the creaks of an old house settling in against the wind.


End file.
